Wojciech Jaruzelski: Poland's last Communist leader, who imposed martial law on the Soviet satellite in 1981 | The Independent Wojciech Jaruzelski: Poland's last Communist leader, who imposed martial law on the Soviet satellite in 1981 Monday 26 May 2014 22:37 BST Click to follow The Independent Online Sphinx-like aura: Jaruzelski announcing martial law in 1981 EPA General Wojciech Jaruzelski, Poland's last Communist ruler, badly wanted history to judge him kindly. He worked hard in the latter years of his life to explain and rehabilitate himself after his imposition of martial law and brutal repression of the free trade union Solidarity in 1981 had made him the most hated man in Poland – and, for a time, an international pariah. And while many Poles eventually accepted his argument that martial law was the lesser of two evils (the alternative being a Soviet invasion), for others he remained forever a Soviet stooge, a traitor and a criminal. His personality was an enigma; a stiff, poker-faced demeanour and his trademark dark glasses only reinforced his sphinx-like aura.

In the end, his life was a story of an intelligent and highly ambitious man – and more specifically, a Pole – operating between the terrible millstones of 20th-century history: Nazism and Stalinism, patriotism and Soviet domination, Communism and demands for freedom. His first taste of that history came at the age of 16, in 1939, when he and his father, guilty only of being members of Poland's lesser nobility, were deported by the Russians from their large estate to hard labour camps in Siberia, where his grandfather, an anti-Russian guerilla leader, had perished many years earlier. Educated by priests at an elite school in Warsaw, he found himself felling trees in waist-deep snow. His father died. The glare from the snow started an eye ailment which compelled him to wear dark glasses in bright light ever after. When the Hitler-Stalin alliance broke up, he joined a Polish army being raised by the Soviets and took part in the Soviet "liberation" of Poland from the Nazis. By then he had learned to speak fluent Russian and had become a convinced Communist. He volunteered and served in KGB units which were setting up Polish security forces to crush Polish nationalist resistance.

Committed to a military career, he studied in Polish and Soviet military academies and gained the patronage of powerful Soviet generals, whose backing proved vital to his career. In 1947 he joined the Polish Communist party and thus set off on a fast, double-track rise to power, becoming a general at the age of 33 and defence minister at 45. At the same time he was rising rapidly through the ranks of the party; at 48, he was elected to the main centre of power, the Politburo. From there, he and other party leaders watched as discontent mounted, until in 1980 it spilled over into mass stoppages, which compelled them – in a dramatic departure from Communist orthodoxy – to accept free trade unions and grant the legal right to strike. The various strike committees joined together in a new trade union which they called Solidarity. For 15 months, Solidarity's power and influence grew: it numbered 10 million members out of a population of some 36 million. Frustration over its failure to extract any reforms from the regime led to (then outrageous) demands for free elections and a referendum on Poland's alliance with the Soviet Union.

The economy, for years a disaster area, had virtually collapsed. The Party, demoralised, divided and with a third of its three million members defected to Solidarity, could not cope. Polish hardliners were fuming restlessly, while Moscow kept up a barrage of threats and intimidation, including manoeuvres close to Poland's borders. The regime's only hope was the military. On 11 February 1981, General Jaruzelski was made Prime Minister, while keeping the defence portfolio. In the autumn he was also made first secretary, or No 1, of the Communist party. Two other generals were moved into the Politburo and Interior Ministry. He commanded immense power. Secret plans for a military takeover swung into action. Small units were sent into towns and villages, officially to help distribute food, but in fact to gather intelligence and create the impression of the Army as the people's friend. Then, on the night between 12 and 13 December 1981, tanks moved into the cities, and roadblocks were set up on bridges and intersections. Tens of thousands of Solidarity supporters were dragged from their beds and arrested. Some 10,000 were interned.

Between 10 and 100 were reported killed. Posters everywhere declared that Poland was under martial law. Solidarity was banned. Protest strikes were crushed by the feared ZOMO paramilitary police. The news unleashed international outrage and protests, and for more than three years Jaruzelski and his regime were shunned by the West. Communist leaders greeted it with praise and relief. Martial law, which was suspended a year later, may have averted a Soviet invasion, but it hardly solved the government's problems. Solidarity continued to flourish in the underground. Despite reform plans, Jaruzelski failed abysmally to improve the economy. Poles became desperately poor, and in the spring and summer of 1988 workers protested with long and bitter strikes. Meanwhile, with would-be reformer Mikhail Gorbachev at the helm in Moscow, the danger of Soviet intervention was receding and the way opening for change. In 1988, Jaruzelski, alone among Eastern European Communist bosses, agreed to negotiate a move towards democracy.

The result was the historic Round Table talks with Solidarity (in which he did not take part personally), which ended with a power-sharing deal: free elections to 161 of the 400-seat Seym (Parliament), the creation of a freely-elected Senate, free opposition media and the re-legalisation of Solidarity. The ensuing elections were an overwhelming victory for Solidarity, which then provided the Prime Minister while the Parliament elected the General, unopposed, as President to reassure Polish and Soviet hardliners. But developments in the Soviet Union soon made his role superfluous, and at the same time Lech Walesa, the Solidarity leader, was pressing hard for his job. He asked Parliament to cut short his six-year term, and in December 1990, with considerable dignity, he stepped down. In the following years he published his memoirs and gave many interviews in which he expressed deep regret for many actions, but sought to justify them. "I served the Poland that existed," he said. He let it be known that he had considered committing suicide rather than impose martial law on his fellow Poles, which he saw as the only route open to him.

The alternatives, he declared, would have been a putsch by hardliners in the military and the Party, civil war, and most probably a Soviet invasion and occupation. This can still be debated endlessly, but he repeated time and again that martial law was a "purgatory" necessary to avoid "hell". He has even claimed that if he had not acted, Gorbachev's campaign for glasnost and perestroika and the bloodless fall of Communism could not have happened, or at least not for many years. And he would like to be remembered as the man who opened the way for democracy in Poland, although he had to admit that memories of martial law were sharper. But as he lived on quietly in his modest suburban house in Warsaw, his past continued to haunt him. A parliamentary investigation was opened into the possibility of treason and other crimes committed during the imposition of martial law, and into the disappearance of Communist Party documents, but they came to nothing. More seriously, in 2000, he found himself having to answer charges in court that he gave the order for troops to open fire on rioting workers in four Baltic ports in 1970.

Forty-five workers died and 1,165 were injured. The general, anxious and popping anti-depressants, laid the blame on others, long since dead. In the end he seemed proud of Poland's new democracy and would comment on political events in a remarkably enlightened way. "I was the link from the past to the future," he said. General Wojciech Jaruzelski, politician: born Kurow, Poland 6 July 1923; married Barbara (one daughter); died Warsaw 25 May 2014. General Wojciech Jaruzelski - obituary - Telegraph Military Obituaries General Wojciech Jaruzelski - obituary General Wojciech Jaruzelski was Poland's last Cold War autocrat and came to be considered both ruthless and pragmatic, a traitor and a patriot Wojciech Jaruzelski announcing martial law in Poland on 13 December 1981.

Photo: EPA 8:01PM BST 25 May 2014 General Wojciech Jaruzelski,, who has died aged 90, was Poland’s last Communist-era ruler and the most controversial figure in his country’s recent history. Regarded throughout his career as a pragmatist, Jaruzelski was defence minister under Wladyslaw Gomulka in 1970 when orders were given to Polish troops to shoot shipyard workers who were striking over food price rises in the northern port cities of Gdansk, Gdynia, Szczecin and Elblag. Forty-four people were killed and more than 1,000 injured, 200 of them seriously. Jaruzelski took over as prime minister of Poland in 1981, when he imposed martial law and suppressed the anti-Communist Solidarity movement. Thousands of Solidarity activists were interned, and several dozen killed in clashes with police or assassinated by secret agents.

Jaruzelski in later life Professor Bronislaw Geremek 16 Jul 2008 But Jaruzelski, who described himself as a “Polish patriot”, denied responsibility for the 1970 killings and later maintained that martial law was justified to forestall an imminent Soviet invasion. Many Poles also conceded that, although he fought hard to maintain Communist Party rule, Jaruzelski reacted to the transition to democracy with good grace. In early 1989 he went against many of the hardliners within his party to press for “round-table” talks with Solidarity aimed at devising some form of power-sharing. The partially-free parliamentary elections of that year ended in victory for Solidarity, and within three months Poland had the first non-Communist government to be formed in Eastern Europe for more than 40 years. Inscrutable behind the dark glasses which he wore because of a medical condition, Jaruzelski remained an enigma, some Poles viewing him as a patriot and others as a traitor.

Yet perhaps the most puzzling aspect of his story was how a boy from a respectable Polish Catholic family who had spent time in a Soviet labour camp had come to embrace Communism in the first place. Wojciech Witold Jaruzelski was born on July 6 1923 into a Roman Catholic family of landed gentry with strong associations with Poland’s cavalry regiments. Brought up in Kurow, near the eastern city of Lublin, he attended a Jesuit school regarded as a training ground for the sons of Poland’s elite. Following the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact of August 1939, hordes of Poles were forcibly transported to Soviet Russia. Jaruzelski, then 16, was put to work in the coal mines of Kazakhstan while his parents were sent to labour camps in Siberia — he never saw them again. Yet Jaruzelski became a fervent Communist and, by 1943 (the same year his father died in captivity), was training to be an officer in a Red Army school.

He was commissioned into the army of General Zygmunt Berling, a Polish unit formed under Soviet command to fight the Nazis, who had reneged on the non-aggression pact and invaded Russia in 1941. Jaruzelski took part in the siege of Warsaw and its subsequent capture, and went on to fight in the battle for Berlin. Back in Poland, he was involved in hunting down bands of anti-Communist guerrillas who refused to surrender. He was sent to the general army staff academy in Warsaw in 1948 and graduated after three years with honours. He also joined the Polish United Workers’ Party — the country’s Communist party. In 1956, at the age of 33, he became the youngest brigadier-general in the army. Jaruzelski entered the Polish parliament in 1961, and the next year was appointed deputy defence minister and promoted to the post of armed forces’ chief political commissar. In 1968 he was made defence minister with the rank of a three-star general.

That year, when Warsaw Pact forces, led by Soviet tanks, invaded Czechoslovakia, Jaruzelski sent a Polish contingent to help suppress the uprising. Two years later, in 1970, unrest had moved to Poland. Trouble began before Christmas , when the government announced a huge rise in the cost of food, provoking strikes focused around the country’s northern shipyards. Although most historians believe that the order to use force against the strikers probably came from Gomulka, Jaruzelski’s role remained unclear. He is said to have told Gomulka that he would not allow troops to be used against civilians; but tanks and soldiers were deployed, and as defence minister he was directly responsible. There is no evidence that he defied instructions, and he did not resign in protest. The year 1970 was a turning point in Polish history. It marked the end of Gomulka’s regime and became an emotional rallying point for protesters.

When, in 1980, worker unrest exploded again under Gomulka’s successor, Edward Gierek, one of the key demands of the Gdansk strikers was that the government should erect a monument to those who had been killed in 1970. To begin with, the Gierek government’s response to the new crisis was to negotiate. Championed by Solidarity, workers were granted the right to strike and promised higher pay and improved social benefits. The crisis eased, but in 1981 government delay in introducing promised reforms provoked fresh disturbances; and, with its leadership in disarray, the Polish government chose Jaruzelski as its fourth prime minister within a year. It was a gesture intended to demonstrate to Moscow that authorities in Warsaw were still in control of the situation, and Jaruzelski acted fast, producing a 10-point programme for economic recovery based on an appeal for a three-month period without strikes, which won support from the Solidarity leader Lech Walesa and from Roman Catholic priests. But the three-month moratorium was ignored. A strike of textile workers in the city of Lodz set off industrial unrest across the country.

In September 1981 Jaruzelski received a blunt order from the Kremlin to take “radical steps” to crush anti-Soviet groups. On December 13, after further abortive negotiations, he declared martial law. He headed the military council which suspended Solidarity and ordered the arrest of its leaders, including Lech Walesa. In a televised broadcast Jaruzelski explained that extremist elements had driven Poland to “the edge of the abyss”. The measures he had imposed were designed to save the country from civil war, and once the national situation had returned to normal they would be removed. He denied that he had acted on instructions from Moscow, but he was given a hero’s welcome when he visited the Soviet capital in March 1982. After Western sanctions, and under pressure from the Pope (who appealed to the general as a fellow-Pole), Jaruzelski eased some of the restrictions and soon released the Solidarity leaders. Martial law was lifted in July 1983, with promises of a general election in 1984.

They were not held, however, until 1985, when Jaruzelski resigned as prime minister to take over the post of president, with a civilian, Zbignien Messmer, appointed to the premiership. But in 1988 Poland experienced another wave of crippling strikes. Faced with a severe economic crisis and encouraged by the new face in the Kremlin, Mikhail Gorbachev, Jaruzelski’s ministers announced that they were ready to end their boycott of Walesa and include him in “round table” talks on the country’s future. Most Poles accepted that Jaruzelski fought a hard battle to persuade his colleagues to sit down with Solidarity and gave him credit for not sabotaging the process when the talks led to elections in June 1989, which the Communists lost. “Some people didn’t want to accept the election result,” he admitted. “But trying to stop Solidarity taking power after the election would have [been] like trying to stand in front of a car going at 100 miles an hour.” Narrowly re-elected president in 1989 by a parliament that included members of Solidarity, Jaruzelski resigned his Communist party posts.

The following year he stepped down early, paving the way for Walesa to be elected in his place. Out of office, Jaruzelski found himself the subject of investigations concerning the 1970 killings, the imposition of martial law and the disappearance of thousands of Central Committee files. Apart from occasional appearances before investigating tribunals, he kept a low profile and spent much of his early retirement ensconced in his modest Warsaw villa writing his memoirs, Why Martial Law? (1993). The book quickly became a bestseller, and Jaruzelski’s popularity soared. An opinion poll in 1995 showed that 54 per cent of Poles considered martial law to have been a correct decision. By this time, too, Poles had become disenchanted by the eccentric presidency of Lech Walesa, and in the 1995 presidential elections the former Communist Aleksander Kwasniewski swept to power. “There is now a chance for real understanding,” a delighted Jaruzelski told an interviewer.

“But instead of triumphalism on one side and a feeling of defeat on the other, there must be a prevailing sense that democracy won.” Jaruzelski continued to regard himself as a man of the Left, and was scornful of former comrades who started ostentatiously going to church. Yet in 2003 he announced his support for Poland’s membership of the EU as an “act of patriotism”. “I see no moral contradiction here,” he said. “We were once in the Soviet sphere of influence and had to live with it. This was the historical logic. Joining the West is now best for Poland.” After years of legal wrangling and delays, Jaruzelski finally appeared in court in 2000 to answer charges of ordering the shooting of striking shipyard workers in 1970. The trial was expected to last 30 years. In 2006 he was charged by the Institute of National Remembrance on two counts relating to abuses during his time in office, but he pleaded ill health and avoided appearing in court. According to several reports, though, he was still fit enough to be caught, earlier this year, in a “compromising position” with his nurse, several decades his junior.

“If my husband does not get rid of that woman I will file for divorce,” noted Jaruzelski’s enraged 84-year-old wife, Barbara. She survives him. Together they had one daughter. General Wojciech Jaruzelski, born July 6 1923, died May 25 2014 Wojciech Jaruzelski funeral held in Poland - BBC News BBC News Wojciech Jaruzelski funeral held in Poland 30 May 2014 Image copyright AFP Image caption Present and former leaders attended the funeral in a Warsaw cathedral Current and former Polish leaders have attended the funeral of the country's last communist leader, despite protests outside the cathedral. General Wojciech Jaruzelski died on Sunday, at the age of 90. His decision in 1981 to impose martial law in Poland is still divisive. The protesters were angry at the decision to bury General Jaruzelski at one of the city's most historic cemeteries, saying he was a traitor who had blood on his hands. General Jaruzelski brought in martial law to crush the pro-democracy Solidarity movement.

The former leader of Solidarity, Lech Walesa, attended the funeral service, as did current President Bronislaw Komorowski, but Prime Minister Donald Tusk decided to stay away. Divisive legacy When Gen Jaruzelski imposed martial law, thousands of people were arrested and dozens killed. Image copyright AFP Image caption Armoured vehicles rolled onto Poland's streets in December 1981 after the general imposed martial law Image copyright AP Image caption Gen Jaruzelski was forced to negotiate with Solidarity eight years after arresting thousands of its members Gen Jaruzelski lifted the decree two years later. There was growing unrest in the country and a series of strikes forced him to begin negotiations with Solidarity in 1989. The following year the Communist Party was dissolved and he resigned as president. The general later insisted that he chose martial law as the lesser evil because it saved Poland from a potentially bloody Soviet invasion. Many Poles, though, disagree. His death, at the age of 90, has re-ignited divisions over the past, with some people wanting him buried with full military honours and others objecting to any state involvement.

Image copyright AP Image caption Protesters outside the cathedral held up photos of victims of the communist regime President Komorowski spoke at the service, calling Gen Jaruzelski "a man who carried the burden of responsibility for the most difficult and probably the most dramatic decision in Poland's history after World War II.'' The president praised him for allowing a peaceful political transition "that brought fruit in the form of our freedom and independence". But outside, protesters held up signs calling Gen Jaruzelski a ``traitor to the nation" and a "murderer". Wojciech Jaruzelski dies at 90; Polish general imposed martial law - LA Times Wojciech Jaruzelski dies at 90; Polish general imposed martial law Wojciech Jaruzelski Francois Mori / Associated Press Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski, Poland's last communist leader, has died at age 90. Above, Jaruzelski in 2009 Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski, Poland's last communist leader, has died at age 90. Above, Jaruzelski in 2009 (Francois Mori / Associated Press) Vanessa Gera Gen.

Wojciech Jaruzelski, who imposed martial law on Poland in 1981, dies at age 90 Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski, the communist leader who imposed harsh military rule on Poland in 1981 in an attempt to crush the pro-democracy Solidarity movement but years later allowed reforms that ended up dismantling the regime, has died. He was 90. Jaruzelski, who suffered in recent years from cancer, heart problems and pneumonia, died Sunday in a Warsaw hospital after suffering a stroke this month, hospital spokesman Grzegorz Kade said. Jaruzelski died just days before Poland marked 25 years since the crucial parliamentary election in which Poles voted against the country's communist rulers and in support of the Solidarity freedom movement. The retired general remained a controversial figure in his homeland until the end of his life for his defining act: the imposition of martial law that began at dawn on Dec. 13, 1981. The suppression of the democracy movement resulted in the mass imprisonment of thousands of dissidents, the deaths of dozens, and economic stagnation that contributed to the system's eventual undoing.

It also pushed many Poles to flee the country and seek exile in the West. Notable Deaths Photos of leaders, stars and other notable figures who died in 2014. Jaruzelski was an unlikely servant to Moscow and its communist ideology. Born in 1923 into a patriotic and Catholic Polish milieu of privileged landowners, he and his family were deported to Siberia by the Red Army during World War II. His father died there and Jaruzelski suffered snow blindness, which forced him to wear dark glasses to the end of his life. Despite his own tragedy at Soviet hands, he faithfully imposed Moscow's will on his subjugated nation until communism crumbled across the region in 1989. For 18 months, Poles lived with curfews, dead phone lines and armed troops and tanks on the streets. Nearly 100 people died during the crackdown, while tens of thousands of Solidarity activists were imprisoned, including future presidents Lech Walesa — the Solidarity leader — and Lech Kaczynski.

Yet Jaruzelski, who headed the government from 1981-85 and the party from 1981 until the communist regime's collapse in 1989, repeatedly defended his decision. "The greater evil would have been a [Soviet] intervention," he said in a 2005 interview. In 1943, after his family had been deported to Siberia, Jaruzelski entered a training school for Russian officers and fought the Nazis in a Soviet-backed Polish army. When Warsaw rose up against its Nazi occupiers in 1944, Jaruzelski and fellow soldiers from the Polish People's Party sat with the Soviet Army across Warsaw's Vistula River, doing nothing for more than two months as the Nazis killed more than 250,000 people and leveled the city. He joined the communist party and quickly rose through army ranks to become chief of the general staff in 1965. As defense minister, Jaruzelski was one of the Warsaw Pact generals who planned the invasion of Czechoslovakia to crush the peaceful 1968 pro-democracy uprising.

In 1970 he carried out orders to suppress workers' revolts in Gdansk and other coastal cities, a campaign that left 44 people dead and hundreds injured. He became general secretary of the Communist party and prime minister in 1981, when Walesa's Solidarity movement was enjoying mass popularity, often expressed through strikes. After the transition to democracy, he argued that he should ultimately be judged by his role in peacefully negotiating a power-sharing arrangement with Solidarity. His foes, however, held on to their view of him as a traitor. He is survived by his wife Barbara, daughter Monika and a grandson. Gera writes for the Associated Press. Dancing with Dictators: General Jaruzelski’s Revisionists | World Affairs Journal Dancing with Dictators: General Jaruzelski’s Revisionists Eric Chenoweth Twenty-five years ago, breakthrough elections were held in Poland that led, within three months, to the downfall of that country’s communist regime.

The events helped to spark the Velvet Revolutions that spread, within the next six months, to Budapest, Prague, Bratislava, Berlin, Sofia, Timisoara, and many other major cities, as masses of people went to the streets to demand their rights, oppose Soviet occupation, and win back their freedom. Communist despotisms that had lasted more than four decades collapsed like a house of cards. The world celebrated the fall of communism and the victory of democracy. It all seemed so clear back then. But not now. The recent death of Poland’s last communist dictator, General Wojciech Jaruzelski, at the age of ninety, has cast a pall on the celebration of that election victory by Solidarity a quarter-century ago. Despite a public outcry, the country’s current and past democratically elected leaders granted Jaruzelski a state funeral and pride of place among Poland’s military and political heroes in Warsaw’s renowned Powazki Cemetery. Meanwhile, some of the country’s most significant politicians and intellectuals, led by Adam Michnik, once one of Solidarity’s key theorists, have exonerated and praised Jaruzelski, despite his imposition of martial law in December 1981 aimed at destroying Solidarity.

Michnik describes Jaruzelski as a Polish patriot who chose the “lesser evil” of martial law to stave off Soviet invasion and who, when given the opportunity, later took the “wise decision” to “unshackle the chains” he had originally bound the country with. The argument is hardly new; indeed, Michnik began canonizing Jaruzelski soon after 1989, usually with harsh polemics against anyone who disagreed with him and especially anyone arguing that Jaruzelski should be held responsible in legal proceedings for gross violations of human rights and Poland’s Constitution during the 1980s. What is new is that the Polish state has now officially sanctioned this historical revisionism in an act that symbolizes the incompleteness of Poland’s—and by extension Eastern Europe’s—democratic development over the past quarter-century. Related Essay For the free world, 1989 felt like the end of history; for those living under the Soviet Union, it was merely a resumption.

The idea that Jaruzelski’s only choice was to impose martial law or face a Soviet invasion is belied by what actually happened on the night of December 13, 1981, when the general invoked “stan wojenny”—literally, a state of war—to be waged not against an external enemy but rather against the more dangerous enemy within, namely the ten-million-member Solidarity union, which had managed to carve out nearly sixteen months of relative freedom for Polish society following its rise in August 1980. Throughout 1980–81, the Soviet Union did wage an incessant campaign against Solidarity and used Warsaw Pact military exercises and Politburo bullying sessions to threaten an invasion on several occasions, but none occurred. In the meantime, from the moment it signed the Gdansk Accords on August 30, 1980, allowing the right to organize free trade unions and other freedoms, the communist government began secret preparations for stan wojenny.

All the while, it staged numerous (unsuccessful) provocations and showdowns hoping to divide and weaken Solidarity, instigate violence (and thereby justify a crackdown), and generally prepare conditions for a re-imposition of “socialist order.” Acceptance of an internal crackdown to prevent an invasion was an idea embraced even by many in the Carter and Reagan administrations. Almost immediately after martial law was imposed, Alexander Haig, secretary of state under President Reagan, expressed public relief that the crackdown on Solidarity and Polish society had been carried out by Poland’s internal security forces rather than by Soviet invasion, while the State Department withheld any condemnation for several days. (Instead, it urged “restraint on both sides” and announced only minor sanctions on Poland affecting air and fishing rights.) The Polish philosopher Leszek Kolakowski, forced into exile for his opposition views, pointed out that this was akin to choosing between “the hangman you know versus the hangman you don’t”: There was little difference for the victim.

(What was not known at the time was that the CIA had been provided the full plans for stan wojenny by Colonel Ryszard Kuklinski, a mole within the Polish general staff who, as one of Jaruzelski’s closest aides, had helped devise the plans starting in early September 1980. Despite this foreknowledge, the US did not craft a plan for reacting to martial law and it took several weeks of intense lobbying by the AFL-CIO labor federation and others both within and outside the administration before the president took stronger actions.) The person who did not make the argument that martial law was a necessary evil to prevent a Soviet invasion was Jaruzelski himself—he would only assert this claim later, after he had left power and was looking to rehabilitate himself to avoid historical condemnation, and by extension the condemnation of courts. In fact, his Declaration of Martial Law and the comprehensive regime of repression Poland’s military and security forces undertook to enforce it show that at the time he had decided to use all means necessary to eradicate Solidarity and all “anti-socialist elements” within Polish society.

He did so in full alliance with, and with full support from, the highest state organs of the Soviet Union and the military command of the Warsaw Pact. Mark Kramer, the director of the Project on Cold War Studies at Harvard University, who has reviewed the extensive Soviet, Polish, and CIA documents on the subject, definitively refutes Jaruzelski’s later claims that he acted to forestall a Soviet invasion. On the contrary, Kramer found that by late 1981: Jaruzelski was pleading with Soviet leaders to send troops into Poland to assist him with the crackdown, and by all indications he was devastated when they turned down his requests. The newly available evidence on this matter from many independent sources casts serious doubt on Jaruzelski’s repeated assertions [after 1991] that his decision to introduce martial law in December 1981 was intended solely to spare Poland the trauma of Soviet military intervention.

The Soviet leadership had strongly supported Jaruzelski’s full centralization of power—becoming head of the communist party, government, and military and internal security forces all at once—precisely because it had full confidence in Jaruzelski’s ability to solve “the Polish problem” using the communist regime’s own forces at a time when the Soviet empire, already beginning its decline, had seriously stressed its military by invading Afghanistan. The Soviet leadership’s confidence in Jaruzelski was well placed: martial law was successfully implemented by Polish internal security and army forces without any assistance from Warsaw Pact allies. More than ten thousand Solidarity leaders and activists were interned or imprisoned in a matter of a few days; demonstrations and strikes were forcibly put down and dozens of workers killed as all independent trade unions and organizations were banned and forced underground. All the available evidence from that time—the actions and statements of the martial law regime—point to one conclusion: the Jaruzelski government willingly suppressed the Polish people’s aspirations for freedoms once again, as communist governments had repeatedly done since the Red Army first imposed them at the end of World War II.

General Jaruzelski, starting as an officer in the Soviet-led Polish First Army, had been among the most faithful servants of that regime in a meteoric career that included service as political commissar of the army and then Polish defense minister during the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia and during the army’s suppression of the 1970 and 1976 worker protests in Poland. Despite the clarity of the historical record, the claim that Jaruzelski acted as a patriot to prevent Poland from being invaded by the Soviet Union has been asserted as fact not only by Adam Michnik but also by many others, mostly former communists. Michnik characterizes those who dispute his assertions as “sad anti-communists” and “stupid imbeciles.” Michnik doesn’t stop there. He also claims, with even greater audacity, that Jaruzelski is responsible for Poland’s regaining its freedom in 1989.

Michnik’s argument is that when he was freed from Stalinist orthodoxy by the reformist Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, Jaruzelski chose the path of “peaceful reform.” Not surprisingly, Aleksander Kwasniewski, who led a reconstituted communist party (the Party of the Democratic Left) after Jaruzelski left office and was elected to two terms as president of Poland, agrees with Michnik and even argues that Jaruzelski deserved a Nobel Peace Prize. This second claim is just as problematic as the notion that the general saved Poland from a direct Soviet invasion. The historical record shows a regime repressing all opposition to its rule until it was unable to resist mass pressure against it. In a recent article for the Daily Beast, former Newsweek correspondent Andrew Nagorski recounts: As late as May 1988 when Gorbachev’s perestroika was in full swing, I witnessed plainclothesmen infiltrating a packed Mass at St. John’s Cathedral in Warsaw’s old town.

As we emerged from the church to face a lineup of riot police, there were a few shouts of “Solidarity”—and the plainclothesmen turned and started chasing, beating, and capturing anyone they could. They caught mostly older people, especially women, who were slower to flee, dragging them ostentatiously across Castle Square to the waiting riot police and their vans that would take them away for booking. Those were not actions of a government seeking reconciliation but of one that still believed force could prevail. The reality that the regime faced, however, was that Solidarity was too big and too broad to repress completely. After martial law was imposed, Solidarity succeeded in reorganizing and even expanding its structures clandestinely to organize protests, strikes, an underground press, book publishing, independent education and culture, and other elements of what was called a “parallel society,” a resistance strategy that kept alive people’s hopes for regaining some measure of freedom. This was not an easy undertaking. Even when martial law was formally lifted and the crackdown was eased, until 1988 the regime continued to arrest and force into exile thousands of people who took part in Solidarity activities. It kept up massive manhunts for Solidarity leaders who escaped arrest and went underground.

It used administrative fines and dismissals from work against Solidarity activists and sympathizers to put them and their families in states of penury. It infiltrated underground structures and sought whenever possible to compromise activists through bribery and blackmail. Despite all this, nearly seven years after the imposition of martial law, Solidarity was still strong enough, in the summer of 1988, to launch another series of national strikes, which, while not as large as those of August 1980, portended a future of ongoing unrest and economic disruption to a communist government weakened by a decade of international sanctions. In addition to the regime’s slow decay, Jaruzelski also confronted another new factor: the Soviet Union, now led by Mikhail Gorbachev, was no longer as firmly committed to preserving communism in Eastern Europe as before. Gorbachev indicated quite early in his rule that the Brezhnev Doctrine, which declared no Warsaw Pact country could be allowed to escape the communist orbit, would (or could) no longer be enforced. It was only in this perilous situation that Jaruzelski finally agreed to negotiations.

The Round Table Agreement that was signed in early April 1989 between the government and opposition representatives, led by Lech Walesa, included, among other items, the re-legalization of Solidarity, release of political prisoners, limited freedom of the press, and quasi-free elections that would allow candidates affiliated with Solidarity to run for one-third of the seats in the Sejm, as the Polish Parliament was called, as well as all seats of a new hundred-member (but largely powerless) chamber, the Senate. While a significant concession, the agreement’s openly stated design, including the elections, was for the regime to retain ultimate power in a controlled setting that ensured what was later termed a “soft landing” for the ruling communists. Thus, Solidarity was not allowed to run as a party; only individual candidates could run as part of the “Citizens’ Committee with Lech Walesa.” Behind closed doors, it was tacitly agreed that Jaruzelski would remain president, and in charge of the army and security forces, in a vote by a newly elected Parliament still controlled by the communist party (called the Polish United Workers’ Party, or PZPR) and its satellites.

As well, communist officials would not face any legal retribution for human rights violations and would retain their control over state institutions and assets and thereby benefit from any economic reform. What happened in the June elections upended all the careful plans of the authorities for maintaining power. Not only were all but one of the contested seats won by Citizens’ Committee candidates—by huge percentages—but voters refused to vote for the communist party candidates. Nearly all PZPR candidates failed to gain fifty percent of the vote, the level required for election. Government pressure convinced Solidarity’s Round Table leaders, in defiance of the popular will and against the existing electoral law, to allow an extralegal second round of elections under rules without quorum qualifications. This made it possible for most of the PZPR candidates to retain their agreed-upon seats and for Jaruzelski to continue as president. Ultimately, however, the clear mandate in the June 4th election in favor of Solidarity and fully repudiating the communist system could not be ignored. With the satellite parties (holding nearly twenty percent of the seats) and even individual communist Parliament members distancing themselves from the PZPR, no stable government except one led by Solidarity’s parliamentary leadership could be formed.

In August, the initial communist-led government (with General Czeslaw Kiszczak as prime minister) fell and, under great pressure, Jaruzelski nominated Solidarity adviser Tadeusz Mazowiecki as prime minister to lead Poland’s first non-communist government since 1944, creating enormous impetus for popular uprisings in other Eastern European countries. Jaruzelski was forced (by constitutional amendment) to cede the presidency the next year and Lech Walesa became the first freely elected president of Poland’s new democracy in December 1990. Poland’s first truly free parliamentary elections were held in 1991, the year the Soviet Union finally collapsed. If the historical record is so clear, why then is Jaruzelski now being described as a great Polish patriot and benevolent bestower of freedom by much of the country’s democratic officialdom and many of its intellectuals? The answer lies partly in the complex divisions within Poland’s political world but primarily in the personal stakes that many people have in defending their roles in negotiating the Round Table Agreement and in creating Poland’s uneasy transition from communism to democracy.

Poland’s opposition movement was always pluralist, with social democrats, liberals, conservatives, believers, atheists, and former communists all joining in a common struggle against a totalitarian communist regime and in support of basic human rights. But there was always a general division between those who supported democratization but believed any change could only come incrementally, by liberalizing the system through reforms from within, and those who believed it was necessary to push for a transformation from outside the system, i.e., to overthrow communism. This division did not have much significance until the sudden rise of Solidarity, which was on the one hand clearly a transformational movement that challenged the very foundations of communist power, but on the other hand was committed to an incremental strategy of forcing the state to recognize free trade unions and other independent social movements, and to respect, at least in a limited way, basic human rights. The nationwide strikes of August 1980 forced the Polish government to negotiate and give in on fundamental demands for freedom by signing the Gdansk Accords.

Yet there arose immediately within Solidarity two camps: one that counseled caution and compromise with the communist authorities in order to protect these gains and another that advocated continuing to press the limits of the possible in a way that might end up bringing communism down. The “compromisers” were associated with the intellectual wing of Solidarity and were said to be more liberal or left-leaning; the “hard-liners” were often portrayed as less-educated worker leaders who had more conservative, Catholic, or “right-wing” views. In fact, there was a great diffusion of views and backgrounds on both sides, and Lech Walesa, while often portrayed as the uncanny balancer who kept the two sides together, in fact also usually supported compromise, as did the Catholic Church itself. But what is inarguable is that the “compromisers” argued against any forceful action by Solidarity (such as calling national strikes in response to government provocations) and often characterized “hard-liners” as extremists whose actions threatened Solidarity’s survival.

As this division hardened into personal rancor on both sides, a belief took hold that “extremism” within Solidarity was a greater danger even than the communist state, which presumably would not act as harshly if it were not provoked. In the view of the compromisers, the slow reformation of communism toward a more democratic system (“revolution by evolution”) had to be the ultimate goal, one which some believed could only be achieved by allying with “moderates” in the communist party. Compromisers often engaged in secret talks and negotiations with the communists, including supposed moderates in the secret police, while hard-liners were generally kept by the compromisers and the communists on the outside looking in. After martial law was imposed, there did indeed appear to be less reason to believe in transformation or revolution and more reason to adopt a strategy of continuing “negotiations” with moderates in the regime. “Moderate,” however, could be a fluid distinction. If outright Stalinists and ideological primitives were the hard-liners, Jaruzelski and his interior minister, General Kiszczak, even though they had implemented a regime of mass repression, had to be the moderates.

Since moderates by definition would not have willingly imposed a regime of mass repression, they had to have done so only as “a lesser evil” to avoid something worse. A mirror image of this schema was then reflected onto Solidarity, whose hard-liners were said to be like those in the communist party and who were therefore equally dangers. In this rendering, the actions of Solidarity “extremists” helped create conditions making martial law necessary by threatening actions that could have provoked a Soviet invasion. In actuality, there were no absolutes on either side. There were many “compromisers” who took steely stands against communist repression (including, when in prison, Michnik himself) and many “hard-liners” who ended up advocating moderation. The pluralism that existed in Poland’s opposition continued to be manifested in the adoption of different political ideas and tactics throughout the 1980s. But one thing emerges clearly from this intellectual and political complexity.

And that is that the person who became the leading ideologue of the “compromisers,” Adam Michnik, who benefited personally from the Round Table Agreement by becoming editor and owner of the powerful political newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza, now defends at all costs his version of what took place in 1989—namely, that a moderate wing of Solidarity negotiated with a moderate wing of the communist party, led by Jaruzelski, and came to a civilized agreement on a transition from communism to democracy. In this rendering, Jaruzelski’s campaign for historical rehabilitation as a Polish patriot and peaceful reformer is not just fully accepted; it must be propagated. This rewriting of history diminishes the Polish people’s enormous sacrifice, courage, and decisive action in achieving freedom over the course of the 1980s in the face of an ideologically hostile communist government that in December 1981 instituted a regime of harsh and continuing repression under the centralized leadership of General Jaruzelski. In 1980–81, the majority of Poles were not compromisers; they believed in resisting government provocations and demands to water down their hard-won freedoms and they wanted to undermine further the communist system.

Everyone understood a Soviet invasion was possible; the majority, however, believed that it was nonetheless necessary to take risks to continue to challenge the authorities to see what could be gained. In 1988, the workers who went on strike demanded full reinstatement of Solidarity and the Gdansk Accords, not “round table negotiations” that compromised the union’s structure and freedom to act. And on June 4, 1989, the vast majority did not accept the “quasi-free” elections promised by the Round Table Agreement and delivered a resounding defeat to the communist party and the entire communist system. The Polish people’s decisive vote on June 4, 1989, accelerated the collapse of communism in Poland—and in Eastern Europe generally—much more quickly than the Round Table Agreement anticipated. And in many ways, the Poles achieved a true rebirth of freedom. Unfortunately, much of the “soft landing” negotiated for the communists, both in the Round Table Agreement itself and behind the scenes, resulted in a compromised birth of democracy (free parliamentary elections did not take place until late 1991). Justice for human rights victims was forsaken.

And the communist nomenklatura unfairly received the benefits of economic reform by virtue of its control over the privatization of state assets, while many of the workers who struggled most for Poland’s freedom have been left jobless and penniless. The consequences are evident in Poland’s social, economic, and political life twenty-five years after 1989, including in persistent high rates of unemployment and poverty, lack of opportunity for young people leading to their mass migration abroad, broken education and health care systems, a weakness of democratic institutions, and a low level of citizen involvement in public affairs. But perhaps the greatest consequence of the “soft landing” is that many of Poland’s current political and intellectual elite have compromised their country’s history of struggle for independence and freedom by exonerating the oppressor who did the most to prevent Polish freedom and, in doing so, have created a moral ambivalence and confusion about the communist period itself. Hopefully, a majority of Poles will act decisively once again and make sure that this assault on history does not stand. Eric Chenoweth is the co-director of the Institute for Democracy in Eastern Europe and former editor in chief of the journal Uncaptive Minds.

OG Image: December 13, 1981: Marking the Anniversary of Martial Law in Poland | Inside-poland.com December 13, 1981: Marking the Anniversary of Martial Law in Poland 12th December 2013 · by Inside Poland · in History , Latest news , Looking Back December 13, 1981. Poles awoke to find that their schools and universities were closed, many of the independent organisations and trade unions to which they belonged had become illegal overnight, and there were tanks on the streets. This was the date that General Wojciech Jaruzelski declared martial law in Poland . Appearing on television, in the only programme broadcast on that morning, General Jaruzelski declared that his intention was not to impose ‘a military dictatorship’. He said that martial law was necessary in order to maintain the ‘legal balance of the country, to create guarantees that give a chance to restore order and discipline’. The disorder and indiscipline to which he tacitly referred arose from the civil and industrial unrest of a nation kicking in the trace of communist domination and threatening at any moment to break free.

General Jaruzelski’s speech, which can be viewed below, with English subtitles, began with these words: “Today I address myself to you as a soldier and as the head of the Polish government. I address you concerning extraordinarily important questions. Our homeland is at the edge of an abyss. The achievements of many generations and the Polish home that has been built up from the dust are about to turn into ruins. State structures are ceasing to function. Each day delivers new blows to the waning economy.” This was the moment that the Polish public heard that they were no longer free: General Jaruzelski announces martial law Three days later, on December 16, nine miners were killed by members of the military police ZOMO , at the Wujek coal mine in Katowice . The miners were among the Solidarity members striking in opposition to martial law. Much later, in 2007, ZOMO officers were prosecuted and handed prison sentences of up to three years for their actions. The ‘pacification of Wujek’ became a defining moment of the early days of martial law.

It was the theme of Kazimierz Kutz’ movie Śmierć jak kromka chleba (Death like daily bread), prompted the USA to impose economic sanctions on Poland , and a memorial was later erected at the mine. From Śmierć jak kromka chleba Martial law was not lifted until July 1983, by which time up to 100 people had died at the hands of state security services. Others – who may in today’s chilling language be described as ‘collateral damage’ – died because there was no access to telephones in the event of medical emergencies. It was no ordinary time for ordinary Polish folk. Movement within, as well as into and out of Poland , was heavily restricted. Mail was censored. Availability of basic supplies became scarce. And, for those who were lucky enough to have had access to a telephone, the phrase ‘Uwaga! Rozmowa kontrolowana!’ (Attention! This conversation is being monitored!) was familiar before every call. 00:32 · […] Jasna Góra in Częstochowa.

It was a time of turmoil in Poland, barely a month before the end of martial law, and the Polish pope’s words were chosen carefully to remind young people in Poland of their […] 21:29 · […] more in Inside-Poland’s in-depth feature on martial law, and see Polska Dotty author Jonathan Lipman’s article […] 14:07 · […] Mr Walęsa said earlier this week that he had ‘lost many battles’ with Jaruzelski, but that he had finally ‘won the war’. He added that he could not state with certainty that Jaruzelski had been a traitor to Poland in his declaration of martial law. […] 16:11 · […] cannot be disputed that, whatever his motives, many died during martial law.

Some, such as the miners killed during protests at the Wujek coal mine in Katowice, were direct […] 21:01 · […] way, the result was the same – on December 13, 1981, Jaruzelski declared martial law, suspended Solidarity (it was banned the following year), and jailed many of its leaders and […] Martial Law in Poland Martial Law in Poland On a cold and snowy Sunday morning on December 13, 1981 the Poles woke up to find their country under Martial Law (literally - The State of War or "stan wojenny"). The Martial Law was imposed by the Military Council for National Salvation lead by, then, prime minister Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski and consisting of 20 other high ranking military officers. The WRON declared Martial Law to "defend socialism". They felt threatened by the members of the first independent trade union behind the Iron Curtin - the Solidarity (Solidarnosc). The Solidarity had been founded only 18 months earlier, in August of 1980 after several weeks of strikes. The workers had gone on strike to protest poor living conditions and lack of independent representation.

With the birth of the Solidarity hopes were high that the new trade union would help to pressure the government to introduce economical reforms and ease restrictions. The government quickly realized that the Solidarity was a threat to the system. Several road blocks were created to derail the Solidarity but the union seemed to grow stronger. The situation made the Soviets very worried and they, on he several occasions, pressured the Polish government and the Polish Communist Party (PZPR) to de-legalized the Solidarity. For the Polish government it soon became apparent that the union was too strong and far too popular to simply de-legalize it. A drastic action was need to oust the Solidarity, so martial law was imposed. The Constitution stated that martial law could be imposed for defense or national security reasons. The Constitution allowed the State Council (Rada Panstwa) to impose a martial law while the parliament (Sejm) was not in session. Although the parliament was in session, the State Council headed by Henryk Jablonski unconstitutionally passed the law under pressure from the military. Only one member of the Council, Ryszard Reiff, voted against the resolution.

The vote took place in the early morning hours of December 13 while Martial Law was under way: people arrested, restriction imposed. The State Council merely rubber stamped the decision of the military that took over the control in the country. Thousands of Solidarity leadership and activists were arrested and imprisoned without court sentence. Among those arrested was Lech Walesa, the legendary Solidarity leader. The WRON, in an obvious public relations stunt, also arrested some prominent figures from the previous government. The borders were sealed, airports were closed and road access to main cities was restricted. Travel between cities required permission. Curfew was imposed between 10 pm and 6 am. Telephone lines were disconnected. Mail was subject to censorship. All trade union and other independent organizations were de-legalized. All TV and radio transmissions were suspended (except one government TV channel and one government radio station). Public administration, health services, power generation stations, coal mines, sea ports, train stations, and most of the key factories were placed under military management. The employees had to follow military orders or face a court martial. Classes in schools and at universities were suspended. From the early morning hours the only TV channel and the only radio station transmitted Gen. Jaruzelski's address .

The anchors wore military uniforms. Only newspapers controlled by the Communist Party or the military were published. The Poles actively resisted the Martial Law by organizing strikes and street marches, but any resistance to the Martial Law was brutally crushed. On December 16, 1981 the police killed 9 striking coal miners at the Wujek Coal Mine in Katowice. The Poles continued to oppose the WRON - many Solidarity members worked underground. They established, the so called, Revolutionary Solidarity and were involved in publishing independent newspapers, organization of street protests, broadcasting radio programs usually cut off by the government jammers). Thousands were arrested and prosecuted. Martial Law was suspended on December 31, 1982 and terminated on July 22, 1983. Some of the restrictive legislation introduced during the martial law remained in force through the end of the eighties. The failure of the WRON and the ruling Communist Party became clear in 1989 when the Solidarity won by a land-slide in the first free election after World War II.

Poland remembers 1981 martial law victims - National Poland remembers 1981 martial law victims PR dla Zagranicy Peter Gentle 13.12.2012 08:57 President Komorowski and First Lady Anna lit candles, Wednesday night, in tribute to victims of martial law, declared by communists on 13 December, 1981. President Komorowski and First Lady Anna light candle in memory of martial law victims: photo – PAP/Jacek Turczyk Events marking the 31st anniversary of the introduction of the, at times, brutal crackdown against the Solidarity trade union, are being held all over Poland, including wreath-laying ceremonies and special religious services. The number of people who lost their lives during martial law, at the hands of secret police, in street demonstrations and in the wake of persecution, is thought to exceed one hundred, though the exact number is not known.

President Bronislaw Komorowski, a former Solidarity activist, said Wednesday night after he lit the candle in the window of the Bellweder Palace where he resides, that 13 December 1981 was a horrible moment in the Polish nation’s history but stressed that looking back into the past from today’s perspective it can clearly be seen how much has been done to make Poland a free, democratic and independent country. "It was a nasty night, a nasty moment in the history of our nation and our state," Komorowski said. He noted, however, that "the more we look back, the more we can see how Poland has changed, how much we have done do make Poland free, democratic, independent". On Thursday, Komorowski is visiting the Białołęka detention centre in a Warsaw suburb, one of 49 places of internment 31 years ago and where he himself was imprisoned, together with other Solidarity activists. Martial law was imposed by General Jaruzelski, the communist party leader and prime minister, at midnight on 13 December 1981.

Eighty thousand soldiers, 30 thousand policemen, 1,750 tanks and 1,900 armoured vehicles were used in the operation whose aim was to crush the Solidarity movement. The move came 16 months after Solidarity’s self limiting revolution began, at a time the movement embraced almost ten million people. General Jaruzelski’s later claims about an imminent Soviet intervention are seen by most Polish historians as an effort to avoid responsibility for his decision. According to documents, there was indeed a threat of a Soviet military intervention a year earlier, in December 1980, and later in March 1981 but there was no direct threat of any intervention in December 1981. Divisive The martial law period divides Poles even today, with 43 percent telling the OBOP opinion pollsters that the introduction of martial law was justified to fend off possible Soviet invasion. Thirty five percent of the respondents hold a different view, with one in every five Poles claiming that General Jaruzelski introduced martial law to allow the communists to hold on to power.

Twenty two percent of Poles have no opinion on the events of December 1981 and only forty four percent of Poles remember the exact date of the imposition of martial law. Twenty eight percent of the respondents do not know the date. (mk/pg) Read on

Question: In which country did General Jaruzelski impose marital law in 1981?
Answer: Poland